


Freezing in the Fire

by Its_Kyla_Not_Kayla



Series: Kyla's TWDG One-Shots [4]
Category: The Walking Dead (Telltale Video Game)
Genre: Angst, Clouis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Mute Louis, Romance Louis / Save Violet, inspired by my own seasonal depression
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-29
Updated: 2019-05-29
Packaged: 2020-03-26 19:37:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19012492
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Its_Kyla_Not_Kayla/pseuds/Its_Kyla_Not_Kayla
Summary: It's been over a year since the defeat of the Delta.The kids huddle together in the music room during a terrible blizzard and Louis tries his best to keep spirits high with what little he has to work with. But how can he help the others find their cheer while the cold threatens to extinguish his own fire?





	Freezing in the Fire

**Author's Note:**

> Theme for this fic: Talk me Down - Troye Sivan

**** Ericson's Academy for Troubled Youth hadn't seen a blizzard like this in years. The first fluffy flakes swirling through the sky a few days earlier were a warning they had underestimated. Freezing temperatures locked the kids within the reach of the Admin Building's few fireplaces, confining themselves to the music room mostly. Sleeping in close quarters to conserve heat within the pile of pillows and blankets splayed across the dusty floor, extra blankets nailed over the windows as they fought against Mother Nature herself in order to survive. The older kids kept a sharp eye on the more vulnerable members of their group.

 

Clementine rarely let AJ out of her sights for more than a few minutes, always keeping the boy held close against the cold and snuggled in a blanket. Louis had tried to offer her his jacket many times, but she always insisted he needed it more no matter how hard she shivered. 

 

Moral hadn't this low since the year before when the Delta came knocking on their doors. Louis tried is best to bring them cheer as his personal role had been, but without the ability to speak, joking about became limited. 

 

Louis opted to use music to raise spirits. Breathing into his cupped hands to thaw his ice-cold fingers. The nearly unbearable cold caused his hands to shake as he struggled to play, throwing off his timing and causing him to press the wrong keys. The broken, disfigured songs came to cruely match how he had felt ever since that day on the boat. When the frustration became too heavy, he had to resist the temptation to just slam his hands against the keys, knowing in the end it would do no good for the piano, his friends, and especially not to himself. Instead, he forced himself to calmly place his hands on his lap and take unsteady steps to where Clementine and AJ sat, wrapping a blanket around them and biting back the urge to cry into her shoulder.

 

At night when the group began to wind down and bundle up, there was no longer a need to fill the silence. Louis was then left without the one minor purpose he felt he had. Alone in the deafening silence that plagued his life since the savage removal of his tongue. 

 

The sun didn't seem to set so much as the sky seemed to dim. The whiteout conditions reported whenever someone checked for a sign of the storm letting up became replaced with blackness and a more intense cold.

 

Whispered  _ "Goodnight." _ 's and  _ "See you in the morning." _ 's muttered around the room as they wondered if they'd live to see the sun again. Louis stretched his arm out as they laid, caressing Clementine's cheek as she leaned into his touch. They leaned in, lips brushing together for a goodnight kiss, they both hugged the child who laid between them tight, using themselves to make sure he never felt the chill.

 

Louis shifted his arm, weakly signing  _ ‘I love you.’ _ to his darling. God how he wished he could really say it to her. Part of him wished he had when he had the chance, even though they were just barely into their relationship. Even back then, it was true for him. No matter how she would have reacted, he didn't care. As long as she heard him say it  _ just once... _

 

"I love you too, Louis." She whispered in return with a smile so warm he swore it could melt every inch of ice outside those walls. The flicker of the fireplace turned her eyes to pools of molten gold, a sight he could admire for the entire night if it hadn't been interrupted by her closing them to sleep.

 

It was good that she was able to rest. Even missing half of her left leg she was still the hardest worker in the group. Making her way around on a prosthetic leg she no longer needed his assistance with crutches, leaving him to simply stand by her side feeling no purpose. That usually didn't bother him too much. He could be content following her to the ends of the earth for the rest of his days as long as she would allow him. 

 

Hours passed as he watched her eyelashes flutter, emitting a soft snore in sync with the rising and falling of her chest. The skin of her cheeks and nose were pink against the chill of the night air. Louis pulled the blanket closer over her shoulder and up to her chin.

 

His eyelids were heavy but he refused to sleep. He never wanted to sleep again. Maybe after the storm had released them, he would try it again. When the storm blew in it seemed to blow with it a searing intensity to his night terrors. The fear of his own subconscious began to spark panic in him as he felt himself dozing off against his own will. 

 

Louis tried to concentrate on the sleeping face of the girl he loved. The sound of her voice. The playful roll of her eyes whenever he did something cheesy. 

 

Anything to keep him awake. 

 

He focused on the mild stirring of the boy who slept between them. The way he laughed at all the jokes he used to tell. The drawings he would excitedly show him. 

 

Anything at all.

 

He focused on the family they had built together. On how he hoped he could be enough for them to make up for his failures before. For the future they'd build together.

 

Nothing was enough. No matter how he tried to fixate himself, Louis was dragged into the dark abyss that was sleep.

 

\---

 

Their words consumed him. Words he couldn't convince himself were figments of his mind because he had heard them so many times in the waking world.

 

**_"Shut up, dude."_ **

 

**_"God, just stop talking!"_ **

 

**_"I wish your mouth would cease."_ **

 

**_"Just shut the fuck up."_ **

 

Louis clenched his hands tightly over his ears but the voices never decreased in volume. They echoed inside his skull on repeat. Voices of people he knew. People he called his friends, family even.

 

An explosive pain erupted from the center of his head as he internally begged for them to stop. He wanted to scream it, but even if he did, the words would only come out as a jangled mess. Attempts at speech resulted in sounds that resembled more like some type of animal than a human.

 

He wondered if they were happy now.

 

They had gotten what they wanted.

 

Louis would never speak again. Never make another annoying joke. Never sing another song.

 

Never again.

 

Just as they all demanded for years.

 

Louis had finally been "Shut up."

 

And now he felt nothing but silence.

 

\---

 

Silence as his eyes shot open and he clamped a hand over his mouth to muffle his laboured breathing and choked sobs. Through his teared-blurred vision, he saw that neither of them had moved at all. He felt thankful that the two he cared for most weren't wracked with the same nightly horrors as he. Tears rolled over the bridge of his nose, staining the floor below.

 

Louis carefully removed himself from the embrace, trying his best not to wake either of them. He stood in the light of the dying fire at what was left of the friends he'd made. Anyone who wasn't present either wandered the woods or was buried in a shallow grave outside.

 

Louis stepped passed them on light feet, pausing at any creak in the old wood as to not wake anyone. He placed a couple more thin logs along with some paper scraps into the embers, prodding them with a metal poker until the flames came to life once more. The heat from the hearth becoming more intense as it spread to the room.

 

He made his way back to where he had been sleeping, pausing for a moment, suddenly overcome by the sight. He took a step back, watching the rising and falling of their chests. Louis shrugged his overcoat from his shoulders, gently draping it over them as an extra barrier between them and the cold.

 

Goosebumps immediately raised on his arms as the air penetrated his thin green shirt. He didn't care though, something about it suddenly felt inviting.

 

\---

 

The music room door clicked behind him as he made his way into the empty lobby of the admin building. Snow piled near the broken windows, flooding in from between the boards. The old dilapidated building creaked and groaned under the force of the wind. 

 

Louis’ breath formed a white cloud in front of his face and his fingers began to ache as they made contact with the wooden bannister of the grand staircase. His boots echo with every heavy step, nearly catching on a few stairs threatening to send him falling forward as he slowly made his way to the top. 

 

He leaned against the door of the vacant office, allowing himself to slump to the floor. Louis’ head bumped the stylized wood as he leaned back, thinking about the room’s former occupant. The room hardly got any use these days, mostly abandoned since his best friend died. Even with all of the god-awful things Marlon had done, Louis couldn’t help but miss him sometimes. 

 

The best friend who gave up on him, just like all the others.

 

They all stopped listening eventually, even him.

 

Louis pulled his knees to his chest, burying his face in them as tears began to fall again. Muffled, broken sobs escaped him as he shivered. Sleep threatened to come for him again, but it became hard for him to care. This would never end, he believed that. 

 

How long would it be until Clementine gave up on him as well? They always did eventually. How long until her love for him turned into pity? Would she even continue to put up with him at that point or would he be resigned to sleeping alone in his old room? 

 

He felt as if a layer of ice had settled on him, freezing him in place right down to his bones. He simply listened to the wind as he waited for sleep to take him, wondering if the cold would claim him for good before we awoke.

 

A new noise broke through the mundane whistling of the wind, starting off distant before slowing creeping closer with more clarity. 

 

**_Step, tap._ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Step, tap._ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** **_Step, tap._ ** **_  
_ ** **_  
_ ** ****_Step, tap._

 

Over and over, yet still he could not bring himself to lift his head to investigate. That was until he heard her voice.

 

_ “Louis?” _

 

Clementine stood before him with his coat draped over her shoulders, pulling it tightly around her. She took one look at his face and rushed forward. The girl fell to her knees, throwing the heavy coat around him.

 

“God, Louis. You’re _ freezing. _ ” She cupped his face, the heat of her hands burning against his cold flesh.

“What the hell are you doing out here?”

 

He tried to sign some kind of excuse, but his numb hands shook far too violently to form anything coherent. Even with this new language, he was still unable to be heard. His teeth chattered as he could only whimper.

 

Clem took his hands his hers, pressing them to her lips as she rubbed the warmth back into them.

 

“It’s okay… It’s okay…” She whispered, her breath hot against his frozen hands.

“Tell me what’s wrong.”

 

All he could do was point to himself, jamming his finger to his chest repeatedly as tears continued to drip down his cheeks.

 

_ ‘Why am I still here?’ _ He signed through his shivering.

 

“What do you mean?” Confusion and concern filled her eyes. Those beautiful, golden eyes.

 

_ ‘Why did I survive, just to come back and be more useless than I was before?’ _ Louis didn’t wait for her response. He pushed stray curls out of her face as he fell into her arms. He held her tight, face resting in the crook of her neck and gripping the back of her jacket. 

 

Clementine wrapped her arms around his neck, one hand played with his dreadlocks while the other readjusted his coat over him.

 

“You aren’t a burden, Louis.” Her breath tickled his ear.

“You never were, and you never will be.”

 

She pulled away, bringing his face to hers and leaning her forehead against his. Her nose gently bumped his as she pressed their lips together. The kiss was fire meeting ice as Louis melted at the touch, sinking into it. The first kiss was followed up by her peppering several shorter ones on his lips before pulling back to look into his eyes.

 

“I love you, Louis. AJ loves you. We’re a family, nothing could  _ ever _ change that.” Tears began to slide down her rosy cheeks as well, mingling with his own.

“I’m the person I am right now, because of you. You reminded me how to live when all I could focus on was surviving.”

 

_ ‘What if someone finds us again like they did before? I couldn’t protect you then, what if I can’t protect you next time?’ _ He wanted to listen to her, but the voice inside his mind screamed far louder.

_ ‘I couldn’t live with myself if I lost either of you.’ _

 

_ “Enough of that, Lou. _ We’ll always protect each other, no matter what. Focus on what’s right here, right now. Just like you taught me. _ ” _ She pulled his hands close to her as she smiled.

“You have me, who loves you with everything I am. You have AJ, asleep downstairs waiting for us to come back to bed. As well as everyone else, they’re our family too.”

 

“I-I-I ...ove.. yu...” Louis tried to form the words but his empty mouth betrayed him. The broken syllables coming out in a garbled mess.

  
  


_ “Shh…” _ She tried to calm him.

“It’s okay.”

Clementine stood, never letting go of his hands as she pulled him to his feet. His joints popped as he moved them from their stiffened positions.

 

“Now let’s go get some sleep, before AJ wonders where we went.”

 

\---

 

She lead him with fingers intertwined to their spot on the music room floor. Each took their respective sides around the sleeping boy, wrapping an arm around him.

 

This time Louis held them both a little tighter as he smiled, welcoming a dreamless sleep.


End file.
